A Cypher Compendium
First, a little history:
Cypher was a US production made in 2001 in Toronto, and was originally called Company Man. (In some countries it’s also known as Brainstorm.) Canadian Vincenzo Natali directed a script by Brian King that defies categorization. Besides Jeremy Northam, the cast includes Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Kari Matchett, Timothy Webber, and Nigel Bennett. Generally well-reviewed, the movie has had a rocky history nonetheless. Cypher was meant to be released in mid-2002, but it only premiered at the Sitges [Spain] Film Festival in October of that year. It opened in various countries over the course of 2003, including a September release in the UK. However, Cypher never had a theatrical release in North America. Aside from some festival screenings (TIFF, for example, in September 2003), it was never shown in movie theaters in that part of the world. The film’s North American distributor, Miramax (still controlled by the Weinstein brothers at that point), even dragged its heels about putting Cypher out on DVD. A Region 1 DVD wasn’t available until August of 2005.
Cypher has since become a cult favorite, with fans debating the many movies and books that serve as its inspiration. People also have a lot to say about the movie’s ending. But the majority of viewers praise it. If I had a dime for every time I’ve read the words “Why haven’t I ever heard of this great film?” written about Cypher in a fan community discussion board, I’d be a rich woman.
A decade after the fact, Natali seems philosophical about the lack of support his film received. In an interview with Jack Giroux for the Film School Rejects blog last year, he had this to say: “[W]hen I made Cypher, which is a movie not many people have seen, the Weinsteins, at that time Miramax, had it, and they are notorious for re-cutting movies and tearing them apart. With my movie, I just don’t think they even noticed I made it. They didn’t even know! Or care. So the upside of that was they didn’t tinker with it. The downside was that they didn’t release it and stuck it in a vault. So not by design, but by sort of accident in that case I had final cut. I made exactly the movie I wanted to make. … It’s a consolation prize for not having my film released. I look at it that way.”
Quotes about the movie and its star, Jeremy Northam:
“I don’t know quite how to describe it, but it’s kind of a fantasy hyper-paranoid thriller. There are elements of ‘The Prisoner’ and ‘Manchurian Candidate.’ There’s brainwashing, mixed identities, it should be fun. It was certainly fun to make.”—Jeremy Northam, Zap2it.com interview by Andria Kuo, April 2002
“I cast Jeremy not particularly because he’s British, but because he’s one of the few leading men who is also a character actor. We needed those two things in the person who played Morgan Sullivan because he does transform so dramatically through the course of the film. I think if people who haven’t seen the movie were shown a scene from the beginning and then a scene from the end I don’t know that they would recognise Jeremy because he really did disappear into the role. I was very lucky to get him, he did an amazing job.”—Vincenzo Natali, in his DVD commentary
“Jeremy Northam, who tends to specialise in rakish charmers, effectively plays a man pretending to be Jeremy Northam. As the geekish, shuffling Sullivan, he lays it on cartoonishly thick, all the better to make Sullivan look absurdly out of place in the new world he inhabits, very much like Philip K Dick’s beleaguered little-man loser-heroes. Mixing James Stewart diffidence and Jerry Lewis gawkiness, Northam’s Sullivan is a 1950s jerk in a 2050s universe.”—from the Independent on Sunday review of Cypher by Jonathan Romney, August 2003
“There’s a distinct nod to the North By Northwest cropduster scene, with Sullivan dumped in the middle of nowhere to await further developments; this makes perfect sense, as Northam is a convincing reincarnation of Cary Grant’s smoothie-in-a-pickle persona.”—from the Independent review
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'”
-- C.S. Lewis
Responses